


How Many Dreams

by Fyre



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Missing Scene, Spoilers for Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 17:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18608899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: Peggy Carter was not having the best of days. Two random strangers had apparently been seen waltzing around the compound. Hank was wailing about some vials missing from his lab and only five minutes earlier, some young thing from the R&D department came dashing in, exclaiming that the tesseract was missing. Several dots very clearly appeared to be joined.SPOILERS FOR ENDGAME





	How Many Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, I know I fluffed the timeline because I saw the film again and realised he went back further, but I liked this idea so I wrote it and posted it on first viewing, when my Steggysaurus eyes were too fuzzy with Tear of Emotes because I recognised the music even before the camera panned in.

It was rapidly becoming a tiresome day.

Two random strangers had apparently been seen waltzing around the compound. Hank was wailing about some vials missing from his lab and only five minutes earlier, some young thing from the R&D department came dashing in, exclaiming that the tesseract was missing. Several dots very clearly appeared to be joined.

“And no one saw anything?” Peggy strode after the young technician – Finn? – who was red from the collar of his shirt to his hairline. 

“I was closing up after Mr. Stark left,” Finn babbled. “And I noticed that the cabinet where we stored the tesseract was open. Something had cut through the locks.”

Peggy pressed her lips together, wondering if it was still considered inappropriate to use a good solid profanity in front of a clearly terrified junior. “Was anyone seen coming or going?” she demanded. Two random strangers, for example.

“Security are still checking.” He fumbled with the door handle, motioning for her to go in ahead of him.

The lab looked as hectic as ever, but she had seen Howard playing with the tesseract often enough to know which cabinet it was stored in. As Finn said, the locks had been cut. From the looks of it, a blow-torch of considerable heat had been used. 

And yet, even though it was open, there was a pale glow emanating from the narrow gap between the doors.

Peggy frowned, cautiously hooking a finger under the edge of one of the doors. It swung open.

“Finn,” she murmured.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I don’t mean to question your judgement, but unless I’m mistaken, I am looking at the tesseract.”

Finn’s shoulder knocked against hers. He made a sound like a startled rabbit. “But it was gone!”

Perhaps it was. After all, what kind of thief wasted all their time cutting through the locks only to leave the most valuable weapon in SHIELD’s arsenal where they found it? Which begged the question, what had they wanted with it and – more confoundingly – why had they put it back?

“Seal the lab,” she said. “I’ll have security run a thorough sweep. We need to know if anything else was touched or tampered with. Stay here at all times. I want eyes on the tesseract until we have some answers.”

“Y-yes ma’am!”

She hurried back through the halls, pausing at the security hub and giving a fresh batch of instructions. Of course, it had to be the one bloody night that Howard bloody Stark decided to go and play the good husband. But then, maybe that was all part of the plan. If someone had been leaking Howard’s whereabouts again…

“Ma’am!” Her secretary rushed down the hall towards her as she neared her office. 

“Unless it’s a matter of great importance, now is not the time for phone calls or files, Bennett,” she said curtly, reaching for the door handle, “I have quite enough on my plate at the moment.”

“He– there’s– it’s–”

Peggy turned to the woman with a frown. Bennett was the most level-headed of the women in the office, but she was white as a sheet and as flustered as poor Finn had been. Peggy reached out to steady her, worried. “What on earth’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

Bennett made an abortive half-nod, half-shake of her head. “Your office, ma’am. I said he should wait in your office.”

Peggy groaned inwardly. If the President had decided to pay an unscheduled visit again, there would be words. “Very well. Let security know that I want any updates about our intruders as soon as possible, would you?”

Bennett hesitated. “Don’t… should I come with you?”

That was confirmation that if not the President, then someone very significant was in her office. 

“No,” she said at once. “I’m sure I can handle it. Security, if you don’t mind.”

Bennett hesitated again, then hurried away.

Peggy paused to check her reflection in the glass of one of the windows that lined the hall. It wouldn’t do to go in dishevelled. She smoothed down her skirt, straightened her cuffs and collar, then walked briskly into her office.

“I’m sorry about the…”

The words died in her throat. 

The man on the other side of the office turned around. From the back, she might have been mistaken, but when he looked at her with those brilliant blue eyes and that lop-sided half-smile tugged up his lips…

“Sorry I’m late.”

Peggy groped for the doorframe. An anchor. Something solid in a world turned into a daydream. He was there. In the uniform. In her office. There were some lines around his eyes, it was true, and his hair was different, but unmistakably him.

“Steve?” she whispered. 

He nodded, taking a cautious step towards her, then another. “You look good, Peg.”

Her eyes were burning, vision blurring. “You… you’re…” She took a faltering step towards him, hardly trusting her legs. When he stretched out a hand towards her, she almost expected her fingers to pass through it, but they didn’t. Skin met warm, living, present skin and he closed his fingers around hers. The sob escaped before she could stop it. “Steve…”

He only tugged a little, but it was enough to make her stagger and she crashed into his arms, praying that she wasn’t going completely mad and that somehow, a miracle had happened. 

When he wrapped his arms around her and held her, she no longer cared. She could only bury her face in his chest and breathe him in, feeling him tremble with the tears they were unable to keep from falling.

How long they stood like that, she couldn’t say, but when her tears were run dry and she could find words in some kind of order, she lifted her head to look up at him.

“You’re really here?”

His thumb brushed her damp cheek and she could swear her eyes were about to overflow again. “Yeah. If you’re not too busy.” There was the familiar self-effacing attitude she had always remembered.

She managed a shaking laugh. “I’m the director. I can decide how busy I am.” She pressed her palm to his chest and felt his heart thunder against it. There were a thousand questions that begged to be answered, but they all boiled down to one: “How?”

Someone pounded on the door suddenly, making her jump. 

“Ma’am!”

Peggy groaned. “That’s my head of security. We– there was a security…” Something in Steve’s expression made her stop. “Steve?”

“We… uh… may have borrowed the tesseract.”

Peggy stared at him, then sagged against him, laughing helplessly. “Of course. Of course it was that stupid bloody thing again.” She patted his chest. “And your friend? Is he still running loose?”

His face crumpled and he shook his head. “Tony… no. It’s… it’s just me now. I brought it back. Tidying up.”

Reluctantly, she stepped back from him. “I feel like there are many stories we need to catch one another up on, but I should deal with this.”

He captured her hand. “Together?”

She looked down at his hand around hers, then back up at him. Twenty-five years and she still felt the rush of pleasure that made her toes curl inside her shoes. What woman would be able to resist pulling him down by the star of his uniform to kiss him? Certainly not her. 

“That,” she murmured against his lips, “sounds like a marvellous idea.”


End file.
